Subscriptions

Space is not just the final frontier. It’s the citizen-science frontier. Thanks to rapid advances in technology, it’s now possible for citizen scientists to build high-quality space-science hardware with off-the-shelf components.

Interest in citizen science and participatory exploration has exploded in recent years. New technologies are making it easier for private citizens to become involved in the scientific process. More and more, the professional scientific community is recognizing the importance of contributions made by dedicated amateurs. Citizen scientists are discovering exoplanets and dinosaurs, monitoring climate and endangered species, and helping to map the human genome.

The development of low-cost reusable suborbital spacecraft will be the next great enabler, allowing citizens to participate in space exploration and space science.

Citizens in Space, a project of the United States Rocket Academy, is riding this new wave of citizen science citizen space exploration.

For the first phase of our project, we have acquired an initial contract for 10 suborbital spaceflights with one of the new space transportation companies — XCOR Aerospace. This represents, to the best of our knowledge, the largest single bulk purchase of suborbital flights to date. We will be making payload space on these flights available to citizen scientists and to professional researchers who play by our open-source rules. We expect to fly up to 100 small experiments in our initial flight campaign. For information on submitting payloads, see our Call for Experiments.

Citizens in Space will also select and train 10 citizen astronauts to fly as payload operators. We have three astronaut candidates already in training. We’ll be recruiting seven more over the next 12 to 24 months.

Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) has successfully landed a Falcon 9 first stage back at its launch site, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

The success comes after two unsuccessful attempts by SpaceX to land a Falcon 9 on a floating platform at sea. In retrospect, it is not surprising that today’s landing met with greater success. Anyone who has served in the Navy can tell you that everything is harder at sea. (Getting FAA and Air Force permission to land the stage back at Cape Canaveral, on the other hand, was no doubt harder than getting permission to land on a SpaceX platform at sea.)

The landing comes just one month after Blue Origin launched its reusable New Shepard into space and successfully returned to Earth. The New Shepard booster performed a similar vertical landing under rocket power. This has led to some comparisons between the two companies whose CEOs have spared verbally in the past.

Various “NewSpace” commentators have taken exception to such comparisons, pointing out that New Shepard and Falcon 9 are very different rockets, from a performance view, and aimed at different markets. Those commentators ignore the fact that Blue Origin was pursuing the same NASA Commercial Crew contract, before NASA “downselected” the field to just two companies (Boeing and SpaceX). Although New Shepard is a suborbital vehicle, Blue Origin is using it to test technologies that it plans to use in its future orbital vehicle. From that perspective, it could be argued that Blue Origin has demonstrated more than Boeing at this point, despite the billions in funding which NASA has awarded to Boeing. And Blue Origin is working toward a fully reusable vehicle, while Boeing is merely building a 60’s-style capsule to be launched atop an existing expendable rocket.

Taken together, the two test flights point to the start of a new era in spaceflight. The age of expendable rockets is coming to an end.

This fact has not been lost on the rest of the world. Russia, Europe, and even India, are busy making plans for their own fully or partially reusable rockets. In the US, SpaceX’s leading commercial competitor, the United Launch Alliance, is working to replace its existing Atlas and Delta rockets with the new, partially reusable Vulcan rocket.

The odd man out, at this point, is NASA. While everyone else is working to incorporate new reusable technologies to reduce the cost of access to space, NASA is spending tens of billions to develop a Saturn V clone — one giant leap (backward) for mankind.

XCOR’s director of engineering and acting chief technology officer Michael Valant has announced the achievement of an important milestone in the development of the reusable 5K18 main rocket engine for the Lynx spacecraft.

XCOR engineers have successfully “closed the loop” of the thermodynamic system under test conditions. The 5K18 engine uses a novel method to drive essential engine parts using waste heat from the rocket engine, eliminating the need for large, heavy compressed-gas tanks in the vehicle. This technology is an important part of the Lynx “instant reusability,” which will allow the vehicle to fly multiple times per day without costly servicing of components.

The engine has already had hundreds of successful test firings in its basic “open-cycle” form.

“There’s still some work to do to improve the cycle efficiency before this engine is ready for flight,” Valant said, “but this is a massive step forward for us in the development of this groundbreaking technology.”

Blue Origin has pulled ahead in the suborbital space race with an unexpected, successful test flight of its New Shepard rocket.

It’s notable that Blue Origin continues to make progress despite being rejected by NASA’s Commercial Crew program. The mantra heard at the Space Frontier Foundation’s NewSpace conference says that the debate between government and commercial space is over — the only correct way to go into space is through “public-private partnerships.” This flight shows that the debate is, in fact, far from over and private enterprise should not be counted out.

The question now is how quickly Blue Origin can turn New Shepard around between flights. The key to low-cost operation is achieving a high flight rate. With luck, we will see many more flights of New Shepard beginning in the very near future.

Reno, Nevada – Citizens in Space, a project of the United States Rocket Academy, and Starbase Operations LLC have successfully completed a series of flight tests that will help advance commercial spaceflight training.

Over the past several months, Citizens in Space and Starbase Operations have developed and tested a technique to simulate the landing profile of the XCOR Lynx spacecraft using an L-39C Albatros jet trainer.

During the test flights, pilots configured aircraft controls to achieve approach angles and sink rates similar to those of a Lynx spacecraft. The test approaches were conducted at an abandoned military air field in Nevada.

During the Space Shuttle program, NASA modified a Grumman Gulfstream II business jet to fly simulated Shuttle landing profiles for astronaut training. The flight tests showed that the L-39C can perform similar training missions for the Lynx spacecraft.

Pilots for the test flights were Major Erik Anderson (USAF-ret.) and airline Captain Bob Ray. Anderson is an Iraq War veteran and an engineer-pilot for XCOR Aerospace. Ray is a Boeing 737, 757, 767 captain for a major airline and a US Navy veteran who served as an A-4 Skyhawk squadron pilot, service test pilot, and instructor pilot. He is one of the few American pilots to hold type ratings in both the L-39C and MiG-21 aircraft.

Science mission specialists, flying in the rear seat, were Edward Wright, project manager for Citizens in Space, and Dr. Justin Karl, chief payloads officer for Citizens in Space. The two mission specialists operated onboard experiments to collect biomedical data and test new wearable-electronic hardware developed by Citizens in Space.

The first flight test was conducted on Friday, July 24, with Anderson and Wright as flight crew. During that flight, Citizens in Space also tested a Hexoskin “smart shirt” manufactured by Carre Technologies, recording biomedical data including EKG, respiration rate, and respiration volume. The Hexoskin shirt is one of several biomedical sensor devices Citizens in Space is evaluating for potential use in biomedical experiments to be flown on the Lynx spacecraft.

The L-39 was built in Czechoslovakia by Aero Vodochody as a military trainer for Eastern-bloc air forces. The aircraft was imported into the United States and modified for air racing. It was flown in the National Championship Air Races by Captain Robert “Hoot” Gibson (USN-ret.), former head of the NASA astronaut office, and later acquired by Starbase Operations LLC, the current owner/operator.

Citizens in Space has announced the payload manifest for its first flight on the XCOR Aerospace Lynx spacecraft.

The experiments will be carried aboard the Lynx Cub Payload Carrier, an open-source payload carrier developed for the Lynx spacecraft by Citizens in Space. Experiments will be controlled in flight by a Citizens in Space science-mission-specialist astronaut.

The experiments announced today cover a wide range of subjects from microgravity crystallization to plant growth, antimicrobial materials for space habitats, and the interaction of water with lunar surface materials. The experimenters are equally diverse.

“Mission One includes citizen scientists working at every level, from high school to professional research labs,” said Dr. Justin Karl, Chief Payloads Officer for Citizens in Space.

The mission announced today is one of ten flights purchased by Citizens in Space. “Citizens in Space is making these flight opportunities available at no cost to citizen scientists,” Dr. Karl said. “In return, citizen scientists pledge to make their experiment designs and data openly available to the entire community. Our goal is to create a huge catalog of flight-proven experiments that future researchers can draw from.

“As science-fiction writer Robert Heinlein once said, ‘You can’t pay it back. You have to pay it forward.’”

Citizens in Space announces the successful completion of a high-altitude balloon flight, the first in a series of missions to test hardware designed to fly on the Lynx spacecraft from XCOR Aerospace.

The helium balloon, which reached an altitude of 25 kilometers (82,000 feet), was launched by a team from the University of Central Florida’s Students for the Exploration and Development of Space. Soon after launch, shifting winds carried the balloon west, rather than east, out over the Gulf of Mexico. The unexpected turn led to a scramble by UCF-SEDS students to locate the balloon, which was lost at sea for several days.

The balloon carried components from the Lynx Cub Payload Developer’s Kit, an open-source science kit available through Citizens in Space and Terran Sciences Group.

“The main goal on this flight was to test Dev Kit components by exposing them to extreme conditions,” said Dr. Justin Karl, Chief Payloads Officer for Citizens in Space. “Post-flight analysis by UCF-SEDS shows that components functioned normally throughout the flight at temperatures down to -50°C (-60°F) and atmospheric pressure below 1% of sea level. At the end, the payload survived a 17.5g water impact and an unexpected dip in salt water. These are far more extreme than the conditions we will experience during actual spaceflights on the XCOR Lynx, where payloads will ride comfortably inside the crew cabin and be subjected to only about 4g of acceleration.”

The flight also served as a launch-and-recovery test for the next Citizens in Space balloon mission, which will carry an ultra-high-definition video camera developed for the Lynx spacecraft.

“High-altitude balloons are a dime a dozen,” said Joseph Ricci, director of projects for UCF-SEDS, “Our mission was part of a larger program which will qualify hardware for use in future spaceflights.”

“This test gives us great confidence in the reliability of our Dev Kit components,” Dr. Karl said. “These components will be useful to groups at all levels, from middle-school classes to professional researchers, who want to fly experiments on the Lynx spacecraft. Anyone who’s interested in flying an experiment in space should visit citizensinspace.org or tsgaero.space for more information on our Dev Kit components and no-cost flight opportunities.”

Citizens in Space will present papers at two small-satellite conferences this month.

On Thursday, 23 April 2015, Citizens in Space project manager Edward Wright will address the 12th Annual CubeSat Developers’s Workshop on the topic of “The Lynx Cub Payload Carrier and Suborbital Flight Opportunities for Small Payloads on the XCOR Lynx Spacecraft.”

The talk will take place during the Launch Capabilities, Testing, and Simulation session on Thursday afternoon.

On Monday, 27 April 2015, Wright will address 2015 Interplanetary Small Satellite Conference on the topic of “Testing Interplanetary CubeSat Payloads Using Reusable Suborbital Spacecraft.” The talk will take place during the Propulsion Systems and Launch session.

In addition, Citizens in Space will have an exhibit table at both events, with the Lynx Cub Payload Carrier and other flight hardware on display.

“The Lynx Cub Payload Carrier is a versatile system that installs in the cabin of the Lynx spacecraft, behind the pilot’s seat,” Wright said. “It allows small experiments to be carried as secondary payloads on any Lynx flight. The Lynx Cub Carrier can be installed and removed quickly for frequent, low-cost flight opportunities.

“The Lynx Cub Carrier is an ideal platform for small materials-processing, fluid-physics, life-science, and engineering experiments. University teaching and research, K-12 education, citizen science, government and industrial R&D can all benefit from the convenient simple interfaces, rapid integration, and affordability of the Lynx Cub experiments.”

The Lynx Cub Carrier provides physical and electrical accommodations for up to 15 small experiments based on the CubeSat form factor. The CubeSat form factor is an international standard commonly used in small satellites. “The use of the CubeSat form factor allows satellite developers to test their payloads and other hardware on suborbital flights at very low cost, with minimal modifications,” Wright said. “Testing hardware on a reusable suborbital vehicle such as the XCOR Lynx will help developers work out bugs in advance, providing greater mission assurance for satellite launches where there is no do-over.”

The XCOR Lynx is a reusable, piloted suborbital spacecraft currently under construction by XCOR Aerospace in Mojave, California. XCOR expects the Lynx to be ready for flight test some time later this year.

The 12th Annual CubeSat Developer’s Workshop takes place at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo on 22-24 April. More information is available at www.cubesat.org.

The 2015 Interplanetary Small Satellite Conference takes place at Santa Clara University on 27-28 April. Full details can be found at www.intersmallsatconference.com.

The Boeing astronaut will be one of two persons to fly the CST-100 capsule on its first crewed test flight in 2017. The other crew member will be a NASA astronaut. Boeing also plans to unveil the CST-100 spacesuit, being developed by David Clark Company, at the same time.

The new launcher, designed to replace the Boeing Delta and Lockheed-Martin Atlas rocket families, is currently named Vulcan. (Although, Paul Allen’s Vulcan Aerospace has protested ULA’s use of the name, a matter which may be resolved in court.)

ULA says the Vulcan rocket will cut launch costs in half through what the company calls “smart reusability.” Rather than attempting to recover the entire first stage, like their competitor SpaceX, ULA will recover and reuse only the main engines, which represent 90% of the stage’s cost. To protect the engines during reentry, ULA will use an inflatable aerodynamic heat shield, which the company is developing under a NASA technology demonstration program. After reentry, the engine pod will deploy a parafoil for further deceleration. When the engine pod has slowed sufficiently, a heavy-lift helicopter will snag the parafoil and carry the engines to a waiting barge. (Air grab is a technique that has been used before, to recover film capsules from spy satellites, but it has never been used to recover engines.)

As expected, the Vulcan first stage will use two methane-fueled BE-4 engines from Blue Origin. The stage will also accommodate up to six solid-fueled strap-on motors. The combination of engines and solid-fueled motors will give Vulcan about 20% greater payload capability than the Atlas V.

If ULA meets its planned schedule (which the company admits is challenging), Vulcan will begin flying in 2019 using the existing Centaur upper stage powered by Pratt & Whitney RL-10 engines. Later, the Centaur will be replaced by an Advanced Cryogenic Evolved Stage (ACES), which will allow Vulcan to achieve the same payload capability as the Delta IV Heavy. For ACES propulsion, ULA is evaluating new engine designs, from Blue Origin and XCOR Aerospace, in addition to the RL-10.

ULA is also taking a novel approach to second-stage reusability. Rather than returning the stage to Earth for refurbishing, ULA is designing the stage so it can be restarted and refueled on orbit. This is possible due to an advanced integrated fluids system, which captures boil-off gasses from the liquid-oxygen and -hydrogen tanks. A small internal-combustion engine (about the size of a lawn-mower engine, but with much higher performance) will burn those boil-off gasses. The integrated fluids system will provide vehicle power, depressurize the propellant tanks, and provide attitude-control thrust. This system will allow the stage to operate on-orbit for weeks or months, rather than hours, with unlimited engine restarts. It will be able to maneuver between various orbits in the Earth-Moon system and return to a space station in Low Earth Orbit for refueling and reuse.

The internal-combustion engine for the integrated fluids system will incorporate race-car technology developed by the Roush Fenway Racing team.

From a geopolitical and national-security viewpoint, the first stage is most important. It will eliminate ULA’s dependence on Russian rocket engines, which now power the Atlas V. But for space exploration and development, the advanced upper stage may prove far more interesting. ULA is arguably playing catch-up with the first stage, working to achieve low cost and reusability which SpaceX is already demonstrating in the Falcon 9. Recovering the main engines may save 90% of the vehicle cost, but it will also limit flight rate since the engines will have to be integrated into a new vehicle. (Based on comments made during the press conference, ULA seems to feel that 20 launches per year would be a large market.)

With the new upper stage, however, come new capabilities. The flexibility of the Advanced Cryogenic Evolved Stage will enable a new mode of operations, which ULA calls distributed lift. The ability to reuse the upper stage as a space tug means that payloads do not need to fit on a single rocket, but can be assembled on orbit. That, in turn, means more efficient payload packaging and innovative architectures. ULA believes that distributed lift will enable concepts such as commercial habitats, propellant and water depots, asteroid mining, and lunar bases.

XCOR Aerospace has announced the appointment of John H. (Jay) Gibson II as its new president and chief executive officer. Gibson succeeds Jeff Greason, who will continue with the company as chief technology officer and chairman of the board. The transition will allow Greason to dedicate more of his time to XCOR’s technical programs.

Gibson previously served as senior vice president for global mission support at Beechcraft, assistant secretary for financial management for the US Air Force, and deputy undersecretary for management reform at the Defense Department.

“There could not be a more opportune moment for XCOR to welcome Jay onboard,” Greason said. “This year is vital to XCOR’s plans. With the commencement of the Lynx flight test program on the horizon, Jay’s arrival allows the team to focus on getting Lynx in the air, moving forward on plans for our orbital vehicle, and transitioning XCOR to a more efficient and effective company. Jay delivers the depth and breadth of leadership and experience necessary to elevate XCOR to the next level.”

“I am excited to join this exceptional team at a critical time on the XCOR journey to making space accessible to everyone,” Gibson said. “The potential of commercially reusable rockets and vehicles in the payload and passenger markets is incredible. This is a rare opportunity to participate in the continuing development of the space industry. “

NASA has released a new desktop application for asteroid detection, developed by NASA and Planetary Resources Inc. based on an algorithm from NASA’s Asteroid Data Hunter Challenge.

Amateur astronomers can use the application to analyze images. The application will tell the user whether a matching asteroid record exists and offer a way to report new findings to the Minor Planet Center, which confirms and archives new discoveries.

The improved algorithm has the potential to increase the number of new asteroid discoveries by amateur astronomers. Analysis of main-belt asteroid images using the algorithm showed a 15 percent increase in positive identifications.

The application was announced during a panel discussion at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas on Sunday.

The Lynx Cub Payload Carrier will be on display this Friday (6 Feb 2015) during Innovation Day at Space Center Houston.

The Lynx Cub Carrier is a platform designed to carry multiple small experiments aboard the XCOR Lynx suborbital spacecraft. The Lynx Cub Carrier fits in a space behind the pilot’s seat (“Payload A” in the illustration above). It can accommodate up to 15 four-inch cubes or a combination of larger experiments up to 12 inches in length.

The Lynx Cub Payload Carrier was developed by the United States Rocket Academy with support from the State of Texas Aerospace Technology Research and Operations (ASTRO) Center (formerly the Space Engineering Research Center), the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Texas A&M University, and XCOR Aerospace. The first flight article, which will appear at Space Center Houston, was finished in 2014. It was previously displayed at events such as the National Space Symposium, International Space Development Conference, and the National Science Teachers Association conference.

The Lynx Cub Carrier will be on display in the Space Center Houston lobby from opening until 2:45 PM. Along with the Lynx Cub Payload Carrier, the display will feature related experiment hardware, a model of the XCOR Lynx spacecraft, and citizen astronaut candidates to answer questions. At 2:45 PM, the Lynx Cub Carrier will move to Johnson Space Center’s Gilruth Conference Center for “Texas: the Space State,” a presentation by Citizens in Space at the Space Exploration Educators Conference. Other parts of the display will remain available in the lobby until 4:00 PM.

Other exhibitors at Innovation Day will include the Lunar and Planetary Institute, the Texas Space Grant Consortium, Microsoft, Nanoracks, and the NASA Commercial Crew Program.

Why are commercial space companies flocking to Texas? Representatives of Citizens in Space will speak on Texas, the Space State at the Space Exploration Educators Conference, which takes place this week at Space Center Houston. The talk, which is open to conference attendees, begins at 2:35 this Friday (6 February 2015).

SpaceX has released a new animation of its Falcon Heavy rocket, which is targeted for first flight later this year. Falcon Heavy will place payloads of up to 117,000 pounds into Low Earth Orbit, more than any American rocket since the Saturn V. More significantly, it will incorporate reusable boosters to reduce launch costs.

Let’s forget that throw-away line about going into space just “because it is hard.”

Kennedy himself did not believe that. He had other reasons (political reasons) for wanting to do Project Apollo.

Many things are hard. Building a life-size replica of the Eiffel Tower out of spaghetti would be hard, but you won’t find millions of people who want to do that. There are millions of people who want to go into space, however. Why?

There is no single answer to that question. There are as many reasons for going into space as there are people who want to go. We don’t need politicians to tell us why we want to go into space, any more than we need politicians to tell us why we want to go to Disneyland, Las Vegas, or Yellowstone National Park.

This NASA film from 1962 shows an early version of the Apollo lunar mission concept. Some interesting minor differences from the final design include the mechanical arms used to reorient the lunar module and the ladder astronauts would use to climb down to the lunar surface.

One notable difference: the Apollo command module was intended to touchdown on land rather than at sea. Shock absorbers would have added considerable weight, however. The final design of the capsule could not safely touchdown on land; the impact would have severely injured the crew members. Broken backs were a likely outcome. As a result, one of the launch constraints on Apollo missions was wind direction. The wind had to be in a direction that would carry the command module out to sea, rather than back toward land, in the event of a launch abort.

That’s in addition to 500 jobs at the SpaceX launch site near Brownsville, Texas — a total of 800 new jobs.

To put that into perspective, NASA’s Johnson Space Center employs about 3,000 civil servants and 10,000 contractors. (Or perhaps 12,000 contractors– the Houston Chronicle and various NASA websites give conflicting figures.) But that number is down from 17,500 workers in 2007 and will remain relatively flat, based on projected NASA budgets. The SpaceX workforce, on the other hand, has the potential to grow rapidly as the company expands into commercial markets.

Astrophobia is the fear of outer space. It can take many forms, from a fear of the stars to a fear of space travel.

One example of the later is actress Jessica Chastain, who starred in the movie Interstellar. When Hollywood Reporter asked Interstellar cast members if they would personally like to go into space, Chastain was the only one who said no — quite emphatically.

Yet, NASA chose Chastain to narrate this new advertisement for its Orion program.

Based on official plans, Orion will carry only four astronauts into space, once every two years — the lowest flight rate since Project Mercury. It would appear that NASA, like Chastain, has a fear of flying in space [very often].

Airbus would not recover the entire first stage, like SpaceX, but only the lower portion with engines, pumps, and electronics. Tanks would still be expended. Airbus says the recovered portion represents 80% of the cost of the stage. Building new tanks for each mission will limit the flight rate, however.

This artist’s conception shows the Moon as it might appear from the cockpit of the XCOR Lynx spacecraft.

This is a sight that can only be seen from space: The Moon against a black sky, with the Earth in daylight. Fewer than .00001% of the world’s population have had the opportunity to see this sight. That number will increase dramatically in the next few years, when suborbital spaceflight becomes commercially available.

At first glance, the Moon appears oddly dark. We usually think of the Moon as being quite bright, almost a pure white. That’s because we’re used to viewing it at night when our eyes are dark adapted. In reality, the surface of the Moon is fairly dark, as shown by observations and photos taken by the Apollo astronauts and the samples they brought back. Seen from space, with the sunlit Earth as a reference, the Moon shows its true color.

For a more complete explanation of the Moon’s appearance from space, read this article.